Retired Supreme Court judge, Prof. Justice Samuel Kofi Date-Bah, has advised legal practitioners to exert positive societal change in the delivery of justice.

He says law professionals can help drive national development by playing their role as agents of change.

He was speaking at the 3^rd KNUST Faculty of Law Eminent Legal Scholars and Lawyers’ Public Lecture.

The lecture was under the theme: “Reflections on the Role of the Ghanaian Legal System in Development.”

Prof. Date-Bah warned that the demands of the profession are likely to lead to skewed execution of the law.

“Under the pressure of the day-to-day, discharge of the responsibilities of the profession’s specific legal roles, it is easy to fall into the error of a mechanistic application of the law.

“The legal profession needs to recognize this fact and bear it in mind when its members are carrying out their various daily black letter legal responsibilities.

“Judges, legal practitioners and law teachers should be conscious of their dual roles as social engineers as well as implementers or translators into action of the black letter law.

“An awareness of their role as change agents will enhance their efficacy in Ghana’s development process,” he explained.

The public lecture has featured experts like Prof. Oteng Kufuor and Prof. Sir Jonathan Montgomery of the University of London.

According to the Dean of the Law faculty, Dr. Ernest Owusu-Dapaah, the lecture series aims “to position KNUST as a competitive global research-intensive institution for advancement in science and technology for industrial and social uptake towards sustainable and global development.”